To:L. D. TROTSKY

Written:Written on August 7, 1919Published:First published in 1942 inLenin Miscellany XXXIV.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1975,

      Moscow,Volume 44,

      page273a.Translated:Clemens DuttTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ThePolitbureau of the Central Committee, having
discussed the very serious questions raised by
you,[3]orders
that the directive of the Commander-in-Chief on these
questions, addressed to the Southern Front and to the 12th 
Army, be carried out. The directive will be forwarded at
once.

ThePolitbureau, for its part, insists that Odessa should
be defended to the
last.[1]

Onbehalf of the Politbureau of the C.C.,Lenin[2]

[1]Seealso present edition, Vol. 35, Document 220.—Ed.

[2]Therefollows the signature of L. B. Kamenev in Lenin’s
handwriting.—Ed.

[3]Thisrefers to Trotsky’s telegram to Lenin reporting that at a
meeting in Kiev on August 6, 1919, attended by L. D. Trotsky,
Kh. G. Rakovsky, A. I. Yegorov, S. I. Aralov, N. G. Semyonov and
V. P. Zatonsky, it was decided to withdraw the Soviet troops
to a new line and to surrender to the enemy the Black Sea coast
with Odessa and Nikolayev.